"Come into another room, Sybil; I have so much to say to you."
And in that other room he told me of his adventures and perils, and
how through them all he had thought of me and wondered, if he never
came back alive, whether I should be sorry, and, if he did come back,
whether I would promise to be his darling little wife, very, very
soon.
But all this, though far more beautiful than poet ever wrote, was not
Shakespeare, and I was to act Juliet at night--Juliet the wretched,
the heartbroken--while my own spirits were dancing, and my pulses
bounding with joy and delight unutterable.
Well, I need hardly tell you my Juliet was not a success. I was
conscious of tripping about the stage in an airy, elated way, which
was allowable only during the earlier scenes; but when I should have
been tragic and desperate, I was still brimming over with new found
joy. All through Juliet's grand monologue, where she swallows the
poison, ran the refrain--"Jack has come home, I am going to marry
Jack." I had an awful fear once that I mixed two names a little, and
called on Jackimo when I should have said Romeo, and when my speech
was over and I lay motionless on the bed, I gave myself up to such
delightful thoughts that Capulet or the Friar, I forget which,
bending over the couch to assure himself that I was really dead,
whispered--
"Keep quiet, you're grinning."
I was very glad when the play was over. We often read the reverse
side of the picture--of how the clown cracks jokes while his heart is
breaking; perhaps his only mother-in-law passing away without his
arms to support her. But no one has ever written of the Juliet who
goes through terror, suffering, and despair, to the tune of "Jack's
returned, I'm going to marry Jack."